Thurgood Marshall

Thurgood Marshall (1976)

Thurgood Marshall at left in the Oval Office with President Johnson , 1967

Thurgood Marshall (born July 2, 1908 in Baltimore , Maryland , † January 24, 1993 in Bethesda , Maryland) was an American lawyer and the first African-American judge on the US Supreme Court . He served from 1967 to 1991 when he retired from office due to an incurable disease. In 2017 his life and work became the subject of the film Marshall .

education

He received his law degree from Howard University in 1933. He then opened a private law firm in Baltimore. In the following year he worked for the civil rights movement . In 1936 he won his first major civil rights case ( Pearson v. Murray ).

Civil rights attorney

The first case - of many more - before the Supreme Court ( Chambers v. Florida ) he successfully closed in 1940. But his most successful case as a lawyer was Brown v. Board of Education 1954, in which the Court ruled that separate but equal public schooling was illegal because it could never be used to prove equality.

Federal judge

President John F. Kennedy proposed Marshall to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961 . When a group of senators from the southern states delayed his confirmation, he officiated for a few months on the basis of a recess appointment . Marshall remained in that federal appeals court until 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson named him a United States Solicitor General . Two years later, Marshall was named a US Supreme Court Justice, with Senate approval, by Johnson , succeeding Tom C. Clark . The appointment is marked by an important quote from Johnson:

"The right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place."

"To do the right thing, the right time for it, the right man and the right place."

Honors

The American Philosophical Society awarded him their Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1992 . November 30, 1993 Marshall was posthumously the Medal of Freedom awarded ( "The Presidential Medal of Freedom"), the highest civilian honor in the United States. In 2001 the US Congress renamed the Foley Square Courthouse in New York City , in which he had worked, the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in his honor. There is also the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in Washington, DC .

Since October 1, 2005, the Baltimore-Washington International Airport , the Baltimore International Airport , carries the name Marshalls in its full name.

Others

Thurgood Marshall was a member of the Freemasonry Association , his lodge is constituted under the Prince Hall Grand Lodge .

He was portrayed by Chadwick Boseman in the 2017 biographical film adaptation of Marshall .

Individual evidence

↑ https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/988 , accessed on March 6, 2016.
^ Marshall Freemason , on the Grand Lodge of British Columbia an Yukon homepage, accessed February 6, 2013.

Web links

Commons : Thurgood Marshall - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Thurgood Marshall - Sources and full texts (English)

personal data
SURNAME	Marshall, Thurgood
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American lawyer and civil rights activist, US Supreme Court Justice
DATE OF BIRTH	July 2, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH	Baltimore , Maryland
DATE OF DEATH	January 24, 1993
Place of death	Baltimore , Maryland

[1] ttps://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/988 , accessed on March 6, 2016.

[2] Marshall Freemason , on the Grand Lodge of British Columbia an Yukon homepage, accessed February 6, 2013.